#ins1sts

most kids , they reached out to the school councilor on their own doing.      a way to get the day to day stress of high school life off their chest in a private manner.      but max , she never had the option.      her mother , albeit good reasoning behind it , had reached out to the school before the year started , asking if ms. kelly could visit with her daughter on a weekly basis.      since neil left , leaving the two scraping the bottom of the barrel just to keep a roof over their heads , the idea of finding a proper therapist was far out of their budget.      but susan knew , if max wouldn’t talk to her , there had to be someone she would talk to.      and the school’s free counseling services was her best bet.      not that the red head opened up much to her anyways.      but for some reason , every friday when she got the free period pass to go to her office before the day was up , she still went.      finding herself standing outside the door with her headset blaring kate bush as she waited for the student before her to leave.      lost in song , max nearly missed the other’s voice like a murmur behind her.      “   sorry   ––   what’d you say ?   ”

@ins1sts​​ rolled the dice ;;  how many fingers am i holding up?  ⸻  (  * chaotic prompts.  )

          HE FELT AS IF HE HAD JUST BEEN HIT BY A TRUCK,  well,  perhaps he was being a little dramatic,  but he did got punched,  and by the way he could barely open his left eye without his head awfully throbbing,  the punch did more damage than he would have liked.    However there was little to no regret of the reason that lead to it,  it had been a long time coming and Mike had never been one to keep his mouth shut when something didn’t sit right with him.    Therefore he wasn’t going to complain too much in his current state of misery while he was sat on the bathroom floor with his back rested against the door of one of the stalls  ( he was going to regret that more than anything ),  droplets of cold water running down his cheek from the soaked napkin rested against what was most likely going to turn out to be a black eye.

          IT WAS JUST HIS LUCK.    Not only he had to deal with being the new kid,  he was already struggling with doing one of the simplest thing ever,  opening his damn locker.    He could hear the whispers & snickering of the other students passing by while he was literally hitting the lock while cursing under his breath.    If Mike would have cared at least a little about his reputation,  he would have given up on the task and just disappear for the rest of the day,  but no,  he was nothing short of a hot head when frustrated,  and he wasn’t going to stop till got that damned thing open.

          Except. . .  he heard the voice,  but it took Mike a beat longer to process what was being said,  mostly because he was still focused on the problem at hand.    The moment the realization dawned upon him,  Mike found himself wishing for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.    A grimace settling upon his features when he very slowly turned around.    ❝  You are being serious,  aren’t you  ?  ❞